Combining STEM and business entrepreneurship for sustaining STEM-readiness

Sustaining interest in STEM subjects throughout the academic career is often the key to a successful STEM career. Maintaining a “STEM-interested” student body can potentially have significant long-term implications for the success of the future STEM workforce. In many cases, students who initially like STEM subjects begin to lose interest in STEM subjects during middle school years. This work-in-progress paper explores the findings of the second year of STEM-Inc, an afterschool program in junior high schools that combines team-based, real-world engineering and computer science projects with business entrepreneurship concepts. One of the important goals of the program is to sustain student interest in STEM subjects and make them aware of STEM careers. Participants are supervised by college student mentors in partnership with school teachers. Traditionally underrepresented students form a significant component of STEM-Inc. While interest in STEM activities, teamwork and entrepreneurial confidence for students were positively influenced in year 2, no significant improvements were observed in STEM skills and interest in STEM fields. STEM-Inc also had considerable positive influences on college student mentors and school teachers. Two mentors reported that they are considering a career in STEM education after their involvement in STEM-Inc. School teachers reported being confident in the inclusion of engineering examples and the design process in their math and science courses.